I was watching the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf last night and the thought occurred that this is one of the few "period" examples of martial arts in a European setting that I can think of. While not exactly "medieval," I think Brotherhood of the Wolf (mid 1600's) is as close as it gets, providing some grist for GH monks.
Anyone know of any other examples of "medieval martial arts?"
First, I'm not sure I'd consider that martial arts in Europe. Aside from the fact that the character doing them was supposed to be a Native American, he was doing Asian martial arts.
Second, are you looking for nothing but examples of unarmed fighting in a movie set in medieval Europe? Or do you mean references to people fighting unarmed in Europe at the time?
Boxing wasn't too popular an entertainment during that period, but wrestling was. And where those two are, you can be sure there is some study and practice of unarmed combat.
Of course, it should be understood the proper context of such. Militarily, it is mostly relegated to emergency techniques for when you are disarmed. Civilly, it is either a police art used to subdue people, particularly where you don't want the police (or equivalent, since the very term is a modern one) carrying weapons. Beyond that, it serves mostly for people who don't want to be convicted of committing a crime while armed.
There is no "battlefield" unarmed martial arts. Anyone, even a "master", who wanders into the middle of a full scale battle and expects to survive with his bare hands is more commonly referred to as a "lunatic", and treated appropriately. Nor is there a particular incentive to wander about unarmed to try and appear harmless or what not. Weapons are better than hands, and if you can get a weapon you will.
As for needing "grist" for the SB, just deal with people other than Asians knowing how to smack people upside the head, alter references to "ki", and have European monks.
I'm thinking of grist for GH monks, not specifically the SB, but they would be included.
In Brotherhood of the Wolf, Fronsac also uses both armed and unarmed martial arts, in addition to the Iroquis Mani, as does the chief villain and his henchmen, all French.
I actually have the DVD and in the BONUS section they provide extended scenes and scenes that were cut. One of these is an extended version of the first fight sequence where Mani and Fronsac come upon the disguised soldiers. In the regular version, only Mani engages the soldiers using a quarterstaff and unarmed. In the extended version, after Mani is finished with the soldiers Fronsac attempts to identify himself as the King's agent and is attacked. He fights completely unarmed.
There were a number of native Eurpoean weapon focused "martial arts."
And if we go into the 1700/1800s, there would be Sherlock Holmes "Baritsu" which was actually modeled after the polyglot "native European" Bartitsu.
Only savate seems to "fit" the D&D monk with a mix of kicks and strikes. No doubt, the martial arts in Brotherhood of the Wolf are not savate. They look like some brand of kung fu. Still, its an example of how martial arts might "fit" in a "european context." That's really what I'm wondering if anyone has seen elsewhere. Movies? Books? Actual historic examples?
When I can, I like to give my players concrete examples to consider when they are considering character concepts and the monk is difficult to provide such for and still stay "european." That's where I think Brotherhood of the Wolf is pretty cool and useful, even if its historic accuracy is not really there.
If people have run across fictional or real examples of unarmed "european martial arts" in books, movies etc. I would be interested to hear about them. To my very limited knowledge, Brotherhood of the Wolf is unique. _________________ GVD
there is actually still practiced in France an ancient martial art that is very similar to judo or jiujutsu, but it is primarily leg locks, sweeps, etc. Savate is based on this and the oriental martial arts the French picked up in their course of empire. I have seen this several times, and it is a highly effective form for street brawling. However punches were not a part of the regimine, but elbows were. Knees were also used extensively, though tripping was the prime attack.
However, as Sam suggests, hands against weapons dont usually work. Those advanced enough with their hands to handle someone with a weapon generally have the sense to stay away from someone with weapons.
While there are many references to European martial arts, the invention of metal armor initially, and the gun eventually phased these out to the point of extinction. They survived in the east for a variety of cultural reasons, but have repeatedly endured revisions over the years.
It is unlikely that the western arts looked very different. and picking a few techniques to concentrate upon as "Signature," moves may help create the differentation that you seek.
Even Savate has some strong ties to sword and cane fighting, one of the reasons it has no punches.
Western unarmed combat forms were all "sports". You pretty well covered the main traditions above. "Self defense" type fighting tended to focus on clubs and quarterstaves, not fists and feet. There were medieval instructors in such things, but they are not well documented since they tended to be employed by the merchant classes, not the warrior ones. The Nobility has the time and authority to train with and bear arms.
Even most eastern martials arts focused on weapons training. *Today* they tend not to, but in the ancient era all those demonstration weapons were the main way of fighting.
If you treat monk-y martial arts as an import from the Distant West - via the Suel Imperium in the past and the Bakluni to the present day - you've got the problem solved. It also adds a bit of distinct cultural flavour to the Suel and the Bakluni ("Oeridians can't jump(kick)").
I don't know anything about savate - but it did put the thought in my head that the Rhennee might have a distinct, down and dirty unarmed/lightly armed fighting/brawling style of their own.
Woesinger gives me a nice opening for another rant of mine on the topic.
The "distinction" of monk weapons from ordinary weapons is poor at best, puerile and absurd at worst.
For some of them, there is absolutely no difference between the "exotic" monk weapon and the standard (European) equivalent except the name and the status as an Exotic weapon. For others, the difference is extremely minor, but appears to ignore functionally identical European weapons, or is a weak attempt to make a weapon "better."
Add in that they start as a poor attempt to reflect the "five traditional weapons of Ryukyu kobudo", and they become just plain peculiar, as that tradition is definitely not the same as the HKAT-type wushu of the Monk class.
There is no reason that the "special monk weapons" should be "special", or otherwise limited or restricted. They should be plain, ordinary, simple or martial weapons, with no size limit, that a Monk can simply use in an expanded manner.
Make that change, and the "conversion" is even more complete.
The only thing people should need to make the monk "fit" is the imagination to see someone unleashing a can of whup-tuchas barehanded. Watch a medieval period movie where the people fight competently, armed or unarmed, not thrashing about like lunatics as once believed, and you have all you need. There are a ton of movies, ranging from excellent to mega-tripe, starkly historical to pseudo-historical, that fit the bill for that.
Acutally, while we're on medieval martial arts - there's quite a bit of artistry to the different sword styles - two handed, sword and shield etc. Have a look at any fencing manual for sword fighting (and not just classical fencing) - there's a lot of technique and finesse involved - different guard stances, the areas they protect, the areas on your opponent you can strike etcetc.
Your regular martial weapon proficiency is a martial art in its own right.
Samwise, I certainly agree with that. And that was the method used for the monk in 1e. Then, the monk's weapon choices were things like daggers, darts, hand axes, etc IIRC.
Medieval warriors certainly trained with their weapons (at least, the professionals did) and often attained great skill. And there were extremely fine quality weapons produced in Europe, too. The main difference is that Europeans did not make a philosophy out of fighting techniques. Presumably because the Church dominated philosophy.
Well, I suppose it comes down to how much philosophy you feel is in Asian martial arts, to what extent it drives them, and which aspects you are considering.
From what I understand, based on my exposure to people who have researched it, I would say they are about equal.
While certain elements of Asian martial arts get chock full of certain pseudo-mystical gobbledy-gook, generally attributed to Taoist or Buddhist theosophy, it tends to mostly be in the form of names, and presumed connections. That is, call a kata "Fifty Four Moves" because it is half of 108, which is the number of flaws men are subject to according to Buddhism, and you enable yourself to overcome flaws related to combat. Allegedly. Functionally, I'm waiting to see actual proof of any such assertion.
I think the same is obvious in European martial arts, with armies being blessed before battle, Popes saying crossbows should only be used on Saracens, and the like. Perhaps not as thoroughly pervasive, but it is still there.
Once you move beyond the things that affect direct practice into the warrior theory, then the theosophical influences became overwhelming in both. Bushido is as heavily derived from Buddhism as the Arthurian knightly ethic is derived from Christianity. And both were as relatively late developments in regards to their arts. (That is, only when the military technology was on the verge of making the weapons and battles for which the codes applied to obsolete were the codes really developed.)
So I think they are about equal overall.
What Europeans didn't do was preserve a certain abstract aesthetic in the practice of their obsolete military arts as the Asian did, but even that is merely relative when you witness things like the Lippizaner Horses, or the more elaborate close order drills, or even watch the Blue Angels perform. Europeans just express the aesthetic differently, as befits the dramatic difference in aesthetic standards between the two cultures.
And yes, the 1st ed monk weapon list is a very good thing to look at, the only two Asian weapons being the bo and the jo, the first distinguished by not having iron caps as its actual equivalent the quarterstaff, the second being a slightly sleeker club. And neither being monk only, should any ordinary character wish to take proficiency with them.
I suppose we disagree slightly on this matter. The differences between the samurai class' military training and that of european knights is not particularly different at the root level. I was thinking more of strong association of many (by far, not all) of the asian 'martial arts' with temples and religious practice. Granted, a good deal of that arose after the arts ceased to have a significant military value. Hwarang-do, for instance, was originally taught to the korean knightly class of an early korean state. But after the fall of that nation, it came to be centered in the buddhist temples. Where is combined with philosophical teaching, healing arts, and such in addition to armed and unarmed combat techniques to form the art as it is taught today.
And while that sort of thing is far less common in the "martial arts" than pop culture makes one think, it is that type of synergy combined with the simple exotic nature of asian culture that results in this widespread dismissive attitude towards european fighting styles.
What about the Templars, Hospitalers, and Teutonic Knights?
What of Archbishop Turpin from the Lay of Roland?
Those are pretty hefty combination of military and religious thought and practice in the west.
I think we agree more than not. It is really just trying to figure out where the line between the two sits in both Asian and European examples, and just how relevant each half is in both. Since I suspect that is somewhere between impossible and mostly moot, I'm willing to declare us both right, and leave it to anyone who feels the need to do the 100+ hours of research to come up with their own informed opinion on the matter.
As for your last, I agree completely.
And so I do what I can to correct it.
I like Woesinger's thought about the Rhenee. My thinking on the monk class in Greyhawk has developed along similar lines. It seems to me that the people most likely to develop an unarmed fighting style are those who couldn't afford or were not allowed to own weapons or armor. When the Oeridians migrated into the Flanaess, the Flan already living in the lands they conquered either got out of dodge or remained to be ruled as the lowest of the low peasants by an Oeridian military class. Among the latter their Oeridian overlords probably wouldn't be too keen on them having the skills or resources to fight back, so anyone who taught the Flan peasants how to fight probably would have had to go "underground". This might have led to the development of various schools of "martial arts" taught by wandering masters. Over the last few centuries this has been allowed to come more to the surface. I realize this explanation does take the whole religious order thing out of the official description of the monk class, but would explain how the class developed. At least to my thinking.
Asian martial arts were never a peasants art.
They started among the noblity, and found there way down to law enforcement and monastics, neither of which was a particularly low social class.
The image of heroic peasants learning to stand up to oppressive soldiers is great for movies, but poor in reality. Even assuming a peasant learned how to fight back, he is still armed with hands and feet against swords and bows. Give him the super funky monk abilities, and he is still one man against dozens or even hundreds. And still worse is that any ruler willing to oppress the peasantry that harshly is also likely to favor mass retaliations for when one of his guards is killed, and one monk can't protect ten separate villages against a thousand rampaging troops.
So if you want martial arts to grow from the displaced Flan ruling class turning their weapon forms into unarmed forms, or their bodyguards protecting them from assassination and teaching their skills to sons of friends over the years, or isolated religious retreats feeling the need for physical exercise so they can meditate longer, great. But take a pass on the peasant resistance. It wouldn't work.
It seems to me that the people most likely to develop an unarmed fighting style are those who couldn't afford or were not allowed to own weapons or armor.
Perhaps, but in the Flanaess we have Xan Yae, Mistriss of Perfection.
Unlike earth, the Oerth has a major goddess who seeks to promote physical perfection. In my campaign, she is the patroness of monk traditions among the Baklunish. Perhaps weapons are superior to fighting unarmed, but with Xan Yae we have a cult with a spiritual reason to practice unarmed (as well as armed) combat, as a way of pursuing physical perfection.
In my campaign, most monks in the Flaneass have some Baklunish connection, and the monesterries are mostly in the west - the Baklunish states, Bissel, a few in Veluna. A seperate monastic tradition is held among the Scarlett Brotherhood, but that is mostly secret.
The Rhenee might have a tradition of unarmed fighting, but I would not make them monk class. To me, monk implies Lawfulness and devotion to some spiritual doctrine as well as physical training. I imagine the Rhenee like Brazilian caepuera (sp?) - something with music, that looks like dance until someone uses it against you, but absent of much philosophy. In 2nd edition terms, I would call them fighters with specialization in pummelling and overbearing. Such a style might fit a Flan underclass as well, if they were in some place landless laborers, slaves, etc. _________________ My campaigns are multilayered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter which, quite frankly, would simply be too strong for your hobbyist gamer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mp7Ikko8SI
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